It was a great experience. I will post many photos at the bottom of this post because I think it speaks louder than my descriptions. First of all, there is nothing like being in a place like an Antigua for a month. To me, this is the minimum amount of time needed to pretend to live in a place and get a real feel and familiarity for it as well as see the sites slow and steady without wearing out. Secondly, it was fascinating traveling to Copan, only 5 hours away, but different. The tipicas comidas were similar sorts of foods, beans, corn tortillas, queso, avocado, but they were prepared and tasted different than their Guatemalan counterparts. Also, the weather was more humid, including an hour and a half of rain in the evening, something rarely seen in the dry season of the popular parts of Guatemala. The border crossing experience was quite interesting too. Despite the agreement between Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, you need to formally leave one country before entering another. This is quite different than going to Canada from Buffalo, where you don't talk to any immigration officials until you are on the other side talking to a Canadian official.
We kept telling the kids how lucky they were to see all of it firsthand rather than simply reading about Mayans in a library book, or worse, a textbook. Hopefully, they understand that most kids don't get to go to Copan or any other site. For some it is money (outside of airfare, there are cheap ways to travel central america like a backpacker, also expensive luxury accommodations with many options in between) or time, but for others it is fear. Regardless, nothing beats this most authentic way to cover the Mayans so well and to get a sense of native peoples generally.
Many things were interesting, but see for yourself:
